Workforce management strives to get the right number of technicians in the right places at the right times to maximize service and minimize cost. Optimization is difficult since it involves intelligent scheduling and dispatching of multiple technicians to different locations, while minimizing cost and maintaining good customer service. Workforce management may be useful, for example, for companies that need to manage a field force of technicians for installations or servicing existing systems. Typical workforce management systems may interface with ticket management systems to schedule and assign jobs to technicians. Optimal workforce management, however, requires more than an optimal schedule for technicians. Immediate and unexpected changes, such as changes in technician status or unforeseen changes in the workload, may require spontaneous adjustments.
Some current workforce management systems provide map centric tools, such as the systems provided by CLICKSOFTWARE™. These systems attempt to optimize efficiency by scheduling and dispatching a qualified technician to a location near the technician. However, these workforce management systems generally come bundled with land base data (e.g., maps or other cartographical data). The bundled land base data may quickly become out-of-date and result in less than optimal scheduling and dispatch. This may also lead to inaccurate driving instructions being provided to a technician, thus further reducing efficiency.
Further, typical workforce management systems may contribute to inefficiencies due to lack of real time location data. For example, a typical system may see that a technician was scheduled to do a job at a first location and, thus, ad hoc schedule this same technician to assist with an emergency repair at a location near the first location. However, if technician finished the first job they may no longer be near the first location. Typical workforce management systems fail to adopt dynamic scheduling and real-time dispatch using real-time location data to increase efficient allocation.
Finally, typical standalone workforce management systems are resource intensive, expensive to operate, and difficult to integrate with other enterprise level systems. For example, a company may purchase a custom made workforce management system to manage field technicians. These systems may be cost preclusive for small companies. Additionally, these systems may be difficult to integrate with allied systems, for example technician time entry systems, ticket management systems, vehicle tracking systems, payroll and benefits systems, human resources systems, and the like.
While systems and methods are described herein by way of example and embodiments, those skilled in the art recognize that systems and methods for workforce management are not limited to the embodiments or drawings described. It should be understood that the drawings and description are not intended to be limiting to the particular form disclosed. Rather, the intention is to cover all modifications, equivalents and alternatives falling within the spirit and scope of the appended claims. Any headings used herein are for organizational purposes only and are not meant to limit the scope of the description or the claims. As used herein, the word “may” is used in a permissive sense (i.e., meaning having the potential to), rather than the mandatory sense (i.e., meaning must). Similarly, the words “include”, “including”, and “includes” mean including, but not limited to.